Transscript:
00:00:08
Jens: Welcome to the Wyrd Thing podcast, episode 28. I’m your host, Jens. My co-host today is Sif. Hi, Sif.
00:00:16
Sif: Hello. Hello.
00:00:17
Jens: And our special guest today is Abe. Abe, would you please introduce yourself a little bit?
00:00:24
Abe: I’m Abe van der Veen. I’m from the Netherlands. I’ve lived there my whole life, but my expertise is in storytelling, and that’s my job, my profession. And, I tell especially traditional stories like fairy tales, myths and lore. Folklore. And that is from the whole of Europe. From Greece to Iceland, from Norway to Italy, but especially Celtic and Germanic stories. So from my profession as a storyteller, I have gathered quite some information about the meaning and symbolism of stories. I’ve written five different books which have, uh, in common that they are about symbolism of stories. Two of them are about trees. And, this evening we’re going to talk especially about symbolism and folklore and rituals of trees, the trees which are autonomous or autochthonous of Europe. So, uh, we will focus on Nordic mythology, but we will also tell something about Celtic, a use of trees in a Celtic way. In a ritual way.
00:01:52
Jens: Thank you. Yes. Today’s big topic is trees as part of our environmental focus we have at the moment. And if I think about trees and the Nordic folklore, I would like to start with the creation of mankind. We have some lines in the Voluspa about that. Sif, would you please read them?
00:02:13
Sif: Absolutely. And from the throng did three come forth from the home of the gods, the mighty and gracious. Two without fate. On the land they found. Askr and Embla empty of might. Soul they had not, sense they had not, heat nor motion, or goodly hue. Soul gave Odin, sense gave Hoenir. Heat gave Lodur, and goodly hue.
00:02:42
Jens: Thank you. Though mankind has been created according to this by the gods from the trees as an emblem usually identified as Ash and Elm. So this story basically tells us we’re all descended descends from the trees.
00:02:56
Abe: Yes. Very interesting. Uh, people and trees have quite some things in common. Also interesting to know that in one of the ages in the Greek mythology, they have ages from golden to iron. The men, especially men, are as well, coming from the trees. So it might not just be Nordic to, uh, suppose that, men and trees have a common lineage or our, uh, descendants, uh, men are descendants from trees. But I like it very much because I can really relate connect to a tree as being a being which has a vertical line. All the animals have more horizontal line. We are like the trees which have a crown on our heads, like the trees have. And well, we don’t have literal roots, but we have our, uh. Well, we should be rooted as well and be like a tree. So I like the imagery.
00:04:02
Jens: Considering that at that time, Europe was basically covered in forest as well. That meant people were surrounded by their relatives in a way and completely living amongst them. We still have a lot of trees, fortunately the landscape. But we’ve slightly lost this feeling of we’re basically living in or next to the forest.
00:04:24
Abe: Yeah, we have lost a bit of a connection with, um, nature. That has lots to do with a different, uh, viewing of our surroundings. Like, uh, for us, we have a utiliaristic way of looking at nature trees. How can you use them? How can you, uh, uh, scientifically categorize them? That’s way different than people would have done 2 or 3000 years ago. Uh, I guess, and of course, I can’t be completely sure, but it would have been much more animistic. Like, we live in a world where, uh, every living being has a soul. Not just human beings, but animals and trees as well. So you could communicate with trees. Well, that makes them much more like, uh, humans than we are looking at trees at this, uh, time. Yeah, in this time.
00:05:31
Jens: Although I would like to mention here that I strongly assume the people also used the trees, there were a very important resource for them, and it didn’t stop them using, uh, building material, fuel for fire and so on.
00:05:46
Abe: No. Uh, well, maybe I’m a bit idealistic, but I guess they might have done that with a bit more respect. Um, but it’s also important to understand that there were special places in nature which were like holy, the sacred groves, the places which the Celtic people, uh, were calling the Nemeton and which the Greek people call the Temenos. And in the Germanic language is the ‘Low’. And they’re there. The nature is sacred. It’s more it’s it’s a specific room which is different from the surrounding nature. So maybe not every tree was special, but some trees were which are were on that specific spot which they associated with their gods and their goddesses. Maybe the place itself, or the tree itself was like a god. But of course we have scant evidence, very few sources to build up this idea. We have especially some fragments of the time when the missionaries came and wanted to chop their sacred groves with their sacred trees down. So, uh, how they really thought about it? We don’t know. But there could have been a difference between the trees they used for their firewood or their building materials, and the trees which were which were in their sacred groves.
00:07:30
Jens: Yes, definitely. In Germany, we have the story about the missionaries took down the Donareiche. So Thor’s Oak. So we have a quite reliable source in a way that there was at least one oak which was considered to be holy and connected to Donar. So which is Thor for the Nordic related.
00:07:53
Abe: I thought I’ve heard. And it was it was it Boniface? Bonifacio was the one who. Yeah. I know a little, um, detail of that story that when the tree fell, it fell into four parts, and he saw that as a sign to make a church out of it, to use the, uh, wood for a church, which is, of course, very literal, uh, literally using the heathen religion to transpose it into a, uh, Christian religion to, to make the conversion easier. So I like that story, even though it’s also very tragical because sacred trees chopping down my heart begins to weep when I think about it.
00:08:45
Jens: Yeah, we had a few more of that we don’t really know. So the Frank’s cut down something called the Irminsul. Yeah. And we don’t really know what it was. If it was a tree, if it was just a pillar somewhere or a decorated pillar, it’s not really sure, but it’s something like this. And it does connect to another tree. You spoke about special trees and special places. And if I just have a look into the Voluspa, it goes on with: An Ash I know, Yggdrasil its name, with water white is the great tree wet. Thence come the dews that falls in the dales. Green by Urth’s well does it ever grow…. so basically the whole world is a tree according to this. Or all the worlds are in a tree or placed in this one tree?
00:09:32
Abe: Yeah. It’s again the, uh, the poetry of the Edda is a bit obscure. It’s not straightforward. So is the tree holding up the world? Is the world in a tree? You can travel, uh, on or in the tree to get from one world to another. That is what Odin does have. They call Yggdrasil also the horse of Odin. So it’s kind of Sleipnir maybe? But that’s poetry. You have to have multi-layered meanings in it. It only makes it more intense. And maybe people in the Germanic world saw their own sacred tree as their Yggdrasil, their cosmic tree. That could quite be so. And that means that the tree is a way to communicate with the spirit world, to maybe even travel to the spirit world, to go from the branches to the upper world, from the roots to the netherworld, like Odin did when he used the tree as a traveling, uh, apparatus. Maybe he used it when he, uh, was also, of course, a very famous part of, uh, the Edda, the Havamal with his hanging on the tree for nine days and nine nights on a windy tree with no food, no water, and just suffering. So that might also have been a way of changing consciousness for getting those runes, getting those that wisdom from a different reality, even though it’s not specifically mentioned in the Havamal that it does, but it does state that he gets, uh, runes and, uh, magic songs. So that’s not something from this world. You have to get that from another world, and maybe you need the hanging to be semi dead to be not. Yeah, not in this living world. So that’s also very interesting part of the, um, Edda.
00:11:54
Sif: The liminal nature of wild spaces as being both religious and ritualistic is a quite a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.
00:12:05
Abe: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s for me also does do you have to suffer to get into that other world and to become wise? Uh, you almost would think that you need to, but I hope that trance can get you there anyhow. So for me, it’s also you told me, uh, Yggdrasil as a, um, a symbol for the world itself or a way to travel to the world. But for me, it’s also more that you could say that’s the macro cosmic image. But there’s also the micro cosmic image where this tree is within yourself. I’ve talked with some tree lovers which have a more, um, spiritual way of connecting with it, who say, well, you can see trees in yourself with a system of your sinews and your veins and stuff like that. It’s like a tree. Well, I’m not sure about it, but what’s a good way of looking at it? So maybe the tree is in ourselves, but for me it would be the energetic, um, roots in your body from getting the energy from the earth and getting it flowing through your energetic or astral body, which flows through your hands, through your maybe even go through your, um, Well, crown and even higher. So for me, that’s also a part of the symbolism of the world tree.
00:13:43
Jens: Quite a while ago, I spent a night at the southern shore of Loch Ness, and there were a lot of ash trees. So in this case, the Edda gives us the slightly contradicting information that is an ash and that it’s evergreen, but never mind that at this moment. And before that, I had this majestic image of Yggdrasil, the world tree carrying all these worlds. We also know that it’s quite a battered tree, because the deer eats on it and the worms eat on it, and it’s really fighting hard. And I was at the shore of Loch Ness, very stony, so a very stony beach, lots of ash on it, and you could see the roots growing over the rocks and looking for the crevices and going down there. There were not huge trees that were really fighting to cling to life there. But I thought that’s much more like it. Connecting with the ground, searching for a little bit of nutrients with these roots there, and really clinging to life and fighting with all the elements there. So since this evening, I think of Yggdrasil as the big majestic tree and more like the fighting for survival and for life, but also the coping with all these circumstances and the connecting of different spaces.
00:15:04
Abe: Yeah, it’s a tree which can endure in barren, difficult circumstances. The Latin of ash is the Fraxinus Excelsior, with Excelsior saying it’s even higher than the tree surrounding it. Excelsior. And when it’s made a very prominent tree in Nordic countries, while Nordic countries aren’t the most fertile, it can be very cold. And so he clings on to life and even then grows to enormous heights. So that’s quite, quite amazing.
00:15:42
Jens: And also giving you very straight wood, which is very useful, both making spears or broomsticks out of it.
00:15:49
Abe: Yeah. The usefulness, uh, comes forth in, in different ways. The interesting thing about the ash, um, and that’s might be more magical use, is that we know it as Yggdrasil, horse of Odin. So it’s a way of travel. But, uh, Irish and Greek sailors, why those countries, I don’t know, used to carry in their ships a piece of ash, because they thought that when you have a bit of ash in your ship, your ship won’t sink. So you would have a safe travel with ash. So there’s a there’s an interesting connection with traveling that’s just some piece of folklore, maybe more 19th century than, uh. Yeah, it might, might be more like from these times. Don’t call it that associative way of thinking.
00:16:45
Jens: Don’t call it just folklore. It’s such an important source.
00:16:49
Abe: Of course, of course. But where we were, we were still talking about more medieval times. So, uh, I wanted to make the difference. Clear.
00:16:59
Jens: Speaking of speaking of difference in other regions, uh, the word tree is a very common concept all over the world. And I hope you could tell us a little bit about the world tree, especially in Babylon.
00:17:13
Abe: Well, you call it, uh, I’m not sure if it was Babylon, but. But my, um, I’ve read Kramer, uh, about, uh, his translations of cuneiform tablets from the Sumerian period. So then we’re really something like 5000 years from now. And that’s, of course, in the same region as what later on became Babylon. I don’t know which city state it was from. Doesn’t matter. There goes the story about, well, you have Enlil, god of air, Anu, god of sky, and they want to put heaven and earth from each other. They create space. Well, they create space for life, for people to live in. But doing that, they also, uh, make it impossible for the cosmic tree to still reach the heavens. So the cosmic tree collapses. Well, that’s, of course, should be a, uh, catastrophe. But there’s a goddess, Inanna. Inanna is a goddess of earth and sky and fertility, sometimes even war. She sees this tree, which is flooding from the, uh, banks of the Euphrates, their big river. And she knows I’m going to do something about it. She plants it again in her garden. Really tends towards it with, uh, soil and water. And it grows again and grows. And so I think it doesn’t state that literally, uh, an ambition to climb it, just like Odin, to go to the heavens. But when she comes back to her garden after some time, uh, of something else, she sees that the tree is inhabited by three monsters. There’s a big dragon which is gnawing at the roots. It has a strange name, knows no desire. Then there’s another monster, a big bird, the minsu bird on top of it, which is carrying which is carrying the tablets of Destiny. So it has something to do with destiny. And then, which is especially interesting there in the middle, in between the branches. The screech owl, but as well known as a witch Lilith, is making her nest. So there we have a dragon and a bird, which is the same imagery as with the Dragon Nidhoggr on the roots. And the bird. Well, I don’t know for sure which is the name of the bird, but there’s a bird on top of the tree seal as well, a big eagle. Um, uh, I know that the ones who makes the wind is called Hraesvelgr, but we do not have a similar monster in the middle of the tree. Uh, the only thing which associativity I would, uh, compare it with is, uh, the, uh, the mistletoe, because it had such has such a dramatic, uh, effect in the life of the gods with the death of Baldur. But of course, that’s just speculative.
00:20:45
Jens: Well, Yggdrasil has very own monster in the middle.
Sif: Ratatoskr!
00:20:52
Abe: Ah, squirrel! Oh, yeah. That’s frightful.
Well, I don’t I would not compare these two with each other, but it’s very interesting to speculate about the symbolism of those kinds of creatures. Well, ratatosk. In Yggrasil, I would compare with the sometimes very furtive terrain of your thoughts, which could fly everywhere. You’re thinking about something and then whoops. Oh, that’s interesting as well. And there it goes. Hoppity hop to another branch. So for me it could be something like that. And Lilith is something quite different. If you know a bit about Lilith, she is the second, sorry, the first wife of the first man on earth, Adam. They get into an argument about who’s to be the most dominant, literally, who gets on top while having coitus, and she flees from the Garden of Delights from Eden into the desert and gets, uh, she’s getting it on with some demons, uh, especially Samael, and gets hordes of demons. Begets them. And those are the creatures, the demon which still give us nightmares or, what’s the good word for it? Um. Uh, spillage of semen. When you have a wet dream, they they give you that. So that’s what Lilith does. Or her, um, descendants. What does that. What does that creature do in that tree? Well, maybe it has something to do with the biggest fears of humankind. Uh, the fears of death on the one side and maybe even life on the other side. Well, for me, in any case, those monsters have something to do with our biggest fears. Dragons, giant birds. It’s also something to do with the way energy works. When energy enters man from the earth, it can clutter. It can become like matter. It started as an energy to become active, to become powerful. But then it clutters. It becomes something like treasure, which is hoarded by a dragon. You can’t do anything with it. It’s just matter. It’s just. It becomes something when it becomes into action. But now it’s passive. It’s it’s just sitting there. And on the other hand, uh, there’s this giant bird which is the bird of the winds that swells or brings the winds. Well, winds is, uh, symbolically associated with thoughts like ratatosk also has something to do with thoughts. When energy comes from above and enters you, it has the tendency to not just be feeling vibrancy, being alive and conscious, but it can become thoughts, which isn’t bad, but it does mean that the world will be divided, which will be split into a thousand million atoms of words and how many words you create. You will never get to the bottom of it. You will have separated yourself from the unity from which you came. So you will be cast out of Eden. You will be away from your purity which you had when you were still connected. But the monsters keep you away from your connection, where heaven and earth is still one. So that’s some of the symbolism which I attached to these monsters, and that the idea of the cosmic tree.
00:25:10
Jens: So Inanna wanted to climb that tree. But there are these monsters.
00:25:14
Abe: Yes.
00:25:15
Jens: That’s the story go on from that point.
00:25:18
Abe: It does. She has, uh, one big windfall. Her brothers won’t help her. They think those monsters are too frightening. But there’s a hero, the epic hero Gilgamesh, who has its own epic, which is great to read, by the way. Uh, but here he helps her and knows how to scare Lilith and the bird away and chops down. Uh, is one of the first dragon slayers. He chops down. That dragon knows no desire. And, uh, well, we would think maybe a bit dramatic, but then he chops down the tree. But maybe the tree had had its purpose because it wasn’t only there to be, uh, admired. It should be used as a way of travel. Well, what do they make from the tree? They make a throne and a bed for Inanna. And they make a drum and a drumstick. They’re almost sure that that’s the right translation for Gilgamesh. And then the next story, which is about Inanna, is how she travels to the underworld. So she might need that bed or the throne to get into the right trance and need that drum and drumstick to guide her like the shamans do today, to get to the other world. And then she has to go through seven portals, through seven doors to get to through the seventh netherworld, where she can meet her, uh, sister, the Goddess Ereshkigal, who is the goddess of the underworld. Well, that’s another story. I won’t go too deep into that. But it does say, see, say something about using again the cosmic tree as a way of travel.
00:27:19
Jens: Okay, let’s travel a bit. Oh.
00:27:23
Sif: No. It’s just I’ve never…. It’s one of those stories that I, I have I have an awareness of existing. I’ve never read the details of. And that the parallels are astonishing. But also the, the idea of the throne and the parallels to like the high seat of Nordic mythology and seidr and, um, this is you were talking then it was the, the the it struck me because we have a description of in Urdrbrunnr. We have a description of a seat as well. So in like, that’s one of the roots of Yggdrasil. We have this connection with a seat being present in the place where the Nornir reside. So, uh, that’s a fascinating thing.
00:28:10
Jens: It’s very interesting.
00:28:11
Abe: Because the Norns, they are sitting next to the tree and looking at that well or pond and trying to get a prophecy or a prediction for people or even the gods. Uh, but do they also are they seated in something like special seats? Is there something known about that?
00:28:32
Sif: All we have is.
00:28:33
Abe: The idea of Hlidskjalf with Odin, who’s seated on high, and it’s not literally said that he’s seated on the top of the tree, but I could well imagine it.
00:28:45
Sif: Oh, I’m gonna have to find it one second. We’ll continue on. But, um. Yeah, there is, there is in it might be in the Voluspa, but I can’t remember. But there is a description of a seat, um, beneath the.
00:28:58
Jens: Roots.
00:28:59
Abe: Or something about whether it’s in Tacitus about a lady So when she’s oraceling or when she’s prophesying.
00:29:08
Sif: Mhm.
00:29:09
Abe: Yeah. We’re interested.
00:29:11
Sif: So many and obviously the saga of Eirik the Red. Um so many. There’s this idea of trance or um the connection with kind of like nature, um, and seats and that kind of traveling aspect is something you see repeated over and over and over again. Um, so yeah, that that is just a fascinating idea.
00:29:34
Abe: when we would connect it with, uh, the, uh, shamanic world, uh, where we have some, uh, material material from Siberia and those worlds, we could even have more, uh, connections, which are comparable.
00:29:52
Sif: Mhm, absolutely.
00:29:52
Speaker 3: Especially when you think about the cosmic tree of the Siberian peoples. The birch tree, again, a tree which connects heaven and earth, a tree with which you can travel to the other world. Mircea Eliade has his, um, um, classic book about shamanism. I’ve read that, and he tells about shamans who chop down a slender birch tree to use for their rituals, put it in their yard, and they, uh, ritualistically climb in the tree. Maybe not even real for real, but they chop. They make nine carvings into the tree which stand for the nine worlds. Well, if you think of the nine worlds, the same thing is, uh, in the adults, the idea that the world is divided into three and again into three. So in Siberian, uh, places, they have the same idea. And of course, they go in that trance with the drum and the drumstick, maybe a little bit of a Of mushroom. Uh or toadstool. Uh. Amanita muscaria, of course. And there they go. Uh, out of the crown. Out of the, um, the hole in the. On the top of the earth. And as a soul, they wander off to do their fightings against demons or their hunt for souls which could be brought back to life. And they use that birch tree. So, again, an interesting comparison.
00:31:40
Sif: Um.
00:31:40
Jens: You traveled far from Babylon or Sumer to Siberia when I wanted to take the route to Greece. But anyway.
00:31:51
Abe: Yeah, I could have done Greece as well. About the tree of Dodona, the oak tree, but. Well, tell me.
00:31:59
Jens: Which one is that?
00:32:01
Abe: Um, in the Greek, uh, mythology, there is also a cosmic tree. It’s called the Oak of Dodona. It’s a sacred forest in which only priests and I think priestesses as well, uh, may reside. It will depend on the area. Greece becomes gradually more patriarchal. So, uh, we don’t know. But there is a giant oak tree, which is, of course, the most sacred and most holy tree for lots of people, uh, Greece as well. And those people use that tree to prophesy, to oracle or the oracle work is also very important. It has been the, uh, uh, most important oracle place, except, of course, for Delphi. Well, in Delphi they use the laurel tree. Here we have the oak tree, and they listen to the whispering of the leaves of the tree to get into a kind of trance, to talk truth. They see to the birds which are flying special, uh, downwards, upwards to the right, to the left. It all has a different kind of meaning. And then there’s a third way of using the tree as an oracle, and that is listening to the murmuring of the pond of the or the, uh, water which is beneath the tree. So three ways to get to the bottom of it, to get to, to real truth. So that’s also a way trees were used to become wise to, to tell truth. But that’s also very, uh, close to the shamanistic travel. You don’t just travel for healing or fertility. You also go there to become wise yourself.
00:33:59
Sif: And that ties in directly to. I found the, uh, the thing I was talking about. It’s actually in the Havamal, and to use Olive Bray’s, uh, translation of, um, verse 111. It’s time to speak from the sage’s seat. And by the will of wyrd, I saw and was silent. I saw and pondered. I listened to the speech of men. And it’s just, uh, my mind is being blown right now. I’m just. I’m just so.
00:34:27
Abe: Beautiful.
00:34:28
Sif: So many, so many patterns of.
00:34:30
Abe: Is that a part of when he, uh, collects the runes?
00:34:34
Sif: Um, it’s it’s around the same time of it. Yes. Um, trying to find another version of the translation. Uh, yeah, I think it’s, um. Oh. Bellows. Um, he says it is time to chant from the chanters stall by the wells of Urth. I was I saw and was silent. I saw and thought and heard the speech of Hor, of runes heard of words. Nor were councils wanting. Such was the speech I heard. Um, yeah. He’s, uh, all about all of his rune knowledge and all of that. It’s a place of knowledge, of wisdom next to the water beneath the roots of the tree. Um. So. Yeah.
00:35:20
Abe: Yeah. The runes. That’s an interesting word as well. It’s it’s about, um, a murmuring. It’s it’s a bit like whispering. You don’t just speak out loud. You you murmur, you might even not even be, uh, heard, but it reminds me a bit of the priestesses, uh, on the oracle stool of Delphi who were babbling. You. Nobody knew how to make sense out of it, except the priests, of course, who were all also like translators. So? So the runes are there. They’re mysterious. You can’t, uh, have a literal truth from it, but you can read into it. You can read the, um, the, the thing which is behind it. I, um, myself associate the, uh, talk about the runes and the hanging of Odin on the tree with the beech tree, even though most people say. Yeah. No, it’s it’s it must have been the ash. It must have been still, it’s not stated there. And the beech tree is, uh, very much associated with, um, wisdom and reading, beech, „Buche“ has an etymological, uh, connection with book. And, uh, when you go to Tacitus, you hear again from a tree. We don’t know which one from which they, um, cut, uh, branches. It’s not the branches. It’s the last part of the branch. The. We call it the loden. The the twigs, the twigs. But a lot are a load. How we call it in Holland is also the destiny, the same word as destiny. So when they take that twig and make a little signature in it, they almost certainly had a kind of room sign in it. Of course, we can’t be sure, because Tacitus doesn’t mention it. And then we’re many centuries further before we really see something about we hear something again about runes, but it sounds logical. They throw the runes or the twigs on the ground on, um, and, and uh, then there’s a part where they have to bend down to pick up those twigs in a how do you call it? Um, a way which is random, a random way. Um, uh, picking things up from the ground is, uh, in an old style. We call that reading. Reading from the ground. So picking things up from the ground is reading. You read the, uh, destiny, which is the twig. And then it’s the case. Will that destiny be a coincidence, or will it just be? Uh, yeah. Which way will your fate go? Will it be in your favour or will it be against you? Well, again, in Dutch and maybe also Germanic languages, uh, we have a word which is called toeval and tegenval. To fall is it falls in your favour. Tegenval: it falls the wrong way. So that’s so coincidental. Or maybe it’s not coincidental. It it’s it’s meant to be. So we have a fate which goes your way or the other way. Just like the twigs fall on the ground towards you or away from you and at all for me, I can see that happening with a beech tree, because beech you can carve in it has a smooth surface. It was used, uh, as well to carve in and to use in as „Buchstaben“, as for letters and even now, you, it’s the most used tree for people to do their love magic, to carve that arrow and that heart in it, to say, this love of ours will last forever. So a little bit of beech magic and reading into a very important tree. The beech.
00:39:57
Jens: Funny enough, we have the German version of the „toeval“, the „zufall“. That’s just the German word for coincidence. We don’t have the „Gegenfall“, the „tegenfall“ doesn’t exist as a word in German and must have the other one.
00:40:15
Abe: Yeah.
00:40:16
Jens: We spoke a bit about different trees and were traveling across Europe. One of the most popular and most known laws for its tree law is the Celtic one. I’m not really good in the Celtic tree law, but I hope you can give us a bit more information about that as well.
00:40:35
Abe: Yes I can.
00:40:36
Jens: So please do.
00:40:40
Abe: I’ve written two books and the first one is completely about the Celtic tree calendar. Second book was about the trees, which didn’t make it into the tree calendar, and I thought that was a shame, because Linden tree, uh, beech tree and yew weren’t in it. And those are culticically, very important. Ritualistically important as well. So a second book, it had to come, but still the Celtic tree calendar is a thing which is used by many, many heathens, uh, Wiccans, Druids, uh, maybe not in a Nordic style, but you can get quite some inspiration of that idea to have a calendar in which you can connect to a specific tree on a specific time in the year. So there are 13 trees, sometimes also a bush or a plant. But let’s stick to the trees, which begin with midwinter and end with midwinter and have 13 because of the moon months, the months are which are related to the moon instead of the sun.
Well, this might be an invention because it wasn’t known until 1946 when Robert Graves wrote his majestic work, the work The White Goddess. Well, you can have criticism about it, but it inspired so many millions of people that that alone makes it a grand work. It puts the Goddess back in its place. It put poetry to a like that is the adoration of the goddess back to something more than just, uh, modern art. And it might have invented or reinvented the, um, Celtic tree calendar. Well, what does he say? There’s an alphabet from the 14th century in, uh. I. think the book of Lebor Ogham ….And, well, in any case, an old manuscript of Ireland where they connect the trees to letters. Ogham letters. Well, the Nordics have their runes, the Irish have their ogham. It’s even more simple, with just notches which are attached to a beam, and they can be upward or downward or diagonally. These Ogham letters are, uh, associated with, uh, the trees, and their calendar is called Beith Luis Nion, which means birch, rowan, ash. Then we get a lot of other trees. I won’t name them all but the oak. The holly, the hazel, the apple. The hol-, the elder tree. Interesting trees.
This, Um, way they are put in order can’t be just coincidental. This must have been a way to connect them with the seasons. And I think he’s right there. We have this medieval, uh, alphabet connected to trees, and they start with birch, which is a white tree, which is a pioneering tree which, uh, belongs to, uh, Nordic countries and has some ritualistic uses which have to, uh, to do with purification. It’s it’s just ideally put in first place. Then we have the Rowan tree, which has also some ritualistic, uh, things, which is our part with the very, very. First beginning of spring. We go forward with like, uh, the Hawthorne tree, which is, of course, in the May time, because in May they use the hawthorne in the May day ceremonies and celebrations, uh, they go further with the oak tree, which is exactly at the place of midsummer. Midsummer, which is the most extroverted, most upward oriented part of the season is connected with the most male or most active, uh oriented tree, the oak, which is also connected to, uh, gods like, uh Jupiter, Zeus, Perkunas, Taranis, sky gods. Well, we’re with the sun at its most upward path and a tree which is connected with those kind of gods which are also from the sky. It fits. It all fits. Next to the oak is the holly tree, which is like the oak king next to the Holly King. Then going down with the year, we have some trees which are very, uh, emblematic for their use as like the apple which you harvest in late summer, beginning of autumn. Its place, their hazel tree, the ninth tree of the calendar, should be, of course, like a tree of wisdom in the nether, going part of the year with its crop of hazelnuts, and then ending at last with the elder tree. Holunder in German. Vlier In Dutch, which is the tree of Frau Holle. Holle is a you can connect or maybe is a goddess of the underworld. Well, in this fairy tale you might know, of course, that she has. She lives in an underworld paradisiacal world, which is beautiful, but it also has a downsides. When you are lazy, when you’re lazy, uh. And you get there and you don’t want to work, well, you will be, um, fortunate if you get out of there alive. But if you get, you get pitch all over you, and you will be pitch black and your world will be one big misery. Of course, when you’re not lazy, when you’re a good, good girl or a good boy, you will be, uh, rewarded with gold like it should be. And of course, your world. Your life will go as gold will be shiny and, uh, fruitful. So. But that’s about Frau Hole. But that’s very, uh, fitting to the 13th month of the year, the month of death and ending and winter. A tree which is hollow within. So you can travel again, the traveling to the underworld. You travel with the elder, with the elder to the underworld, to the world, as well as the of the fairies. It’s also a fairy tree, like the hawthorn. So for me, uh, symbolically speaking, it all fits. So I’m convinced that he not just created it, but that he reinvented it and that there was indeed a use of it, uh, in medieval, maybe even heathen times. But of course, we cannot prove it.
00:48:32
Jens: Thank you for mentioning Holle.
00:48:35
Abe: Yeah.
00:48:35
Jens: That’s very nice for our podcast here and for the whole series.
00:48:43
Abe: Is Holle mentioned before?
00:48:44
Jens: Yes.
00:48:47
Abe: Nice.
00:48:49
Jens: The episode before mentions. Holle.
00:48:53
Abe: I should listen to that one.
00:48:55
Jens: Uh, published just after this recording. But we will have to do some editing here anyway. Yeah. Uh, another kind of tree I would like shortly to speak about. Just because I remembered it in this moment, uh, is what’s called a tree. And the error at one place. Although we all know that it’s not actually a tree, which is the mistletoe.
00:49:19
Abe: Ah.
00:49:19
Jens: And we have this famous and famous story about Frigga taking the oath of every living thing and being, and not to humble or accept Except the tiny little mistletoe. So Loki makes this, uh, treacherous use of the mistletoe. And we know the story, I assume. Why the mistletoe? What do you think about that?
00:49:43
Abe: Yeah.The mistletoe is, uh, seen as a very special plant in other cultures as well. Think about the golden bough of Aeneas, which might possibly have been the mistletoe. It’s compared with the mistletoe, in any case. And more importantly, the use of mistletoe. Uh, in the Celtic druids, which harvested it and used it as an all you sow. Not like. Well, if you have ever read, uh, Asterix and Obelix not like thing to become very strong, but to, uh, to heal whichever, uh, malady you have. Um, in the Germanic, uh, countries. Of course, you have the tale of Baldur. And um, which is important to know is that Baldur has bad dreams, Baldur trauma. He has, in fact, nightmares about his demise, about a dark future. And then the story begins with Frigga going to all kinds of creatures, saying, don’t harm Baldur. Well, the mistletoe is called Maretak in Dutch, I think in more languages. Also something with Mare. And the thing is, Mare is a word for the nightmare. And the nightmare isn’t just a dream. The nightmare is a creature which gives you that dream. We already mentioned Lilith. Lilith is a kind of nightmare creature. She gives you bad dreams. Lilith is in the center of the tree. The matter is also in the center of certain kinds of trees. Especially then apple and poplar. And of course, in the Celtic mythology, they say it’s in the oak tree. And in the folklore they tell that the mother or the nightmare is a creature which not only gives you the nightmare, but which comes through crevices in your house, even very tiny little, uh, openings. And then that’s upon you and pushes on your, uh, on your, on your chest, and you’re getting like, you feel like you’re suffocating. And when that happens and you’re asleep, that’s that’s the main part of it. You’re asleep when that happens, then you get those nightmares. She’s like a succubus. She sucks the life out of you. She is a vampire. She’s a parasite. She gets energy out of your fear, and maybe also out of your desire. When you look at Lilith, it could also be a dream of erotic tension, which you might want to release. And that will also be a way of, uh, of of of losing energy. Well, mostly she’s, uh, and she’s mainly known for her, uh, way of causing nightmares. She does the same with trees. She does it with horses. Uh, the many barns have, uh, horse, um, poles attached to the, um, doors to ward of this evil creature because they say, well, she goes from house to house. She wants to enter, but then she sees that horse, and then she might climb the horse instead of our living horses, which are in the stable. So there are many ways of warning of this evil creature, but she also has to rest, and she rests in some trees, and when the mud rests in a tree, there will spontaneously evolve a tiny plant, the mistletoe. The attack. So. And when you look at the mistletoe, it does the same. It’s also a vampire. She is a parasitical being. She, uh, is sucking out the juices from the life tree. Gets his nourishment. His or her in. In folklore, it’s mostly seen as a female creature. That’s why I’m almost always say her. She is sucking it out of the tree. But of course, she’s just half Parasitic, but she also gets sunlight on her green, very green, lush, uh, foliage and gets her energy from that as well. But in folklore, they, uh, concentrate on that parasitic behavior of using the tree, the host, to get your energy. Well, when Balder gets hit by a, uh, a well, what is it, a spear or maybe an arrow? I’m not quite sure. One one of both made out of mistletoe, which they thought could never happen because it was such a tiny creature, they thought it would was harmless, and then it wasn’t. So that was quite a scare. He. He’s killed. So a god of. Well, they’re still debating what is his complete function. Is it lights? Uh, spring? Uh, fertility, growth? Maybe something in that. He’s, uh, in any case, a very shining and popular god. A god shouldn’t die. How can a god die? It’s like a paradox. But this tiny creature gets into his system and makes him ill. Well, he dies instantly, but. But I see it like. Like something incipient which crawls under your skin. For me, it’s also Baldur. Like a kind of super human being. So what? He, uh. What what’s what’s his fate is the fate of human beings. We get infected by a parasite. Well, what is the parasite? For me, it is, uh, a consciousness, Which is pushing things far from you. An analytical, rationalistic, egotistic way of being which makes you everyday a little bit, a bit less alive. You’re that much here in your head, that much in your arrogance that you can’t connect anymore. And that is a thing which is going on at this moment. That is the where the reason why we are destroying the nature around us, because we just don’t see it. People just don’t know. The difference between one plant and the other are one bird and the other. And when they don’t see the difference, they don’t see the uniqueness of it and they don’t appreciate it anymore. So they’re pushing nature away with a distancing way of being. But that’s, of course, a very personal, um, way of experiencing this myth. But okay, this might be personal, but the fact remains that the mistletoe is associated with a parasitic being. So make of that what you want. For me, it’s this. Maybe for you, something else. But it’s. Well, it does make it very interesting. Of course.
00:57:45
Sif: On the fascinating the mistletoe mistletoe story is really interesting for me because obviously you have those parallels of we associate mistletoe with winter, and Balder is like this light harvest, you know, all of the life giving aspects I’m quite fond of, um, the Nancy Marie Brown’s exploration and Song of the Vikings, in that she took it from a more of a kind of a, a cultural aspect in terms of stories is writing. And, um, the mistletoe doesn’t grow in Iceland? No, it’s incredibly rare in Norway. Um. And the Icelandic word for mistletoe is mistilsteinn. Uh, or words to that effect. Anything like that. The way that Brown saw it was that Snorri wouldn’t have any idea what this thing looked like or would have like. He would have the word. And the way that she puts it is that, uh, most a lot of Icelandic words ending in steinn or include steinn means sword. Um, and so Mistilsteinn would be Mist’s Sword. And I’m. I like this theory only because I’m a Valkyrie nerd. Um, and the Valkyries are my specialty. Um, so Mist is a Valkyrie, so it’ll be the Valkyrie sword as being something quite deadly. And. And Snorri thought that that thing would have been a deadlier weapon. That’s how he would have imagined it. I quite like that. But I also I love that idea of kind of insidious parasitic, of such an antithesis to life. You’ve suggested and they’re kind of the, the, the dreams and the nightmare aspects. Just it rings right, you know? Um, so, yeah. Fascinating stuff.
00:59:34
Abe: Yeah. Why did he choose specifically that plant? It’s it must have had a reason. Even though it didn’t grow in Iceland. Almost not in it must have had a reason. We, uh, we can’t ask him any more, so we will have to, uh, give our give it our own guesses, I guess. But of course, it’s so, uh, paradoxically, also when you think of the more romantic idea of kissing under the mistletoe and and mistletoe as a place of green, luscious green in a season of darkness. So then it becomes something quite different, a different symbol of hope. So that’s that’s the paradox. How can it be so tragic in the myth of Baldur and so hopeful in the use in midwinter?
01:00:26
Sif: Well, I’m just it’s just it’s just it’s fascinating the the whole idea of story, tradition moving through folklore into modern interpretations and the way we see it as the romantic element. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing stuff.
01:00:41
Abe: It is. It is. It also has a fertility, uh, part in it with the white berries, which some people associate with semen, especially when it’s, uh, exactly in between the the twigs in the in between the green twigs. So it’s then it’s really a fertility symbol.
01:01:01
Sif: Oh, great.
01:01:02
jens: I would like to move to slightly more uplifting stories. Or at least one of them. I like this one especially. You mentioned the Rowan, the Rowan tree as being the second in the Celtic tree calendar and Sif, the Rowan is one of the few trees actually named in the Eddas and the Prose Edda in this case. And would you please read for us the story about the Rowan tree?
01:01:32
Sif: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s in Skaldskaparmal.
01:01:36
Jens: Yes.
01:01:36
Sif: Uh, yeah. And when Thor got to the middle of the river, the river rose so much that it washed up over his shoulders. Then Thor spoke this:
“Rise not thou now, Vimur, since I desire to wade thee into the giants’ courts. Know thou that if thou risest then will rise the As-strength in me up as high as heaven.”
‘Then Thor saw up in a certain cleft that Geirrod’s daughter Gialp was standing astride the river and she was causing it to rise. Then Thor took up out of the river a great stone and threw it at her and said:
‘“At its outlet must a river be stemmed.”
‘He did not miss what he was aiming at, and at that moment he found himself close to the bank and managed to grasp a sort of rowan-bush and thus climbed out of the river. Hence comes the saying that Thor’s salvation is a rowan. Faulkes you and your translations!
01:02:32
Abe: Very nice. It’s a little part of a bigger story about his venture to a giant Geirrod, whom of course, he has to fight with and wins like always. But those giantesses are much more fun in the story. That’s not just a straightforward fight, but they. Well, they, uh, like, well, they they they fight, uh, um, ingeniously so she stands astride the river V more and causing the river to grow. How does she do that? Some people think she is not only. She might be peeing in it, but maybe she is menstruating in it. That’s also one of the, uh, ideas about that story. Well, that makes it something like, because Thor is a very macho male figure, and then she uses her most feminine wiles and ways against him. So that’s really an interesting, uh, clash. Well, he can’t find his footing. Uh, Loki is also clinging onto him. Makes it even more difficult. Uh, it it does remind me of the difficulty. Not just for men, but for everybody to, uh, keep your, uh, um, balance, your inner balance in a situation of action and rage. This woman is enraged, and she uses her feminine ways to really, really, uh. And he he can’t hold. And the only thing which makes him, uh, not being engulfed by it, uh, by the, the feminine part is that little tiny bush. He he can get that, and it keeps him in balance. Well, um, I, I have to go to some Celtic things to try to explain this or maybe have a. Well, it’s of course, again, uh, it’s just an interpretation. But still in the Celtic, uh, countries like Ireland and Scotland, Scotland, they, uh, use the Rowan as a protective plant or a protective tree. They make, Um, uh, a circles with it with a cross in it. They make like the Celtic cross with it. And they do that, uh, binding it with red thread with a red thread, and then they hang it, uh, on the entrances of their stables or the entrances of the chambers of their children, or even on the, um, how do you call it the cradles of the newly born and those, um, crosses with red thread made of Rowen, uh, would be against all kinds of very evil, witchcraft and demons. Evil. So it keeps you in balance. A cross is a symbol of balance. It always gets to the middle, to the center of it, from different ways. You go to the crossroads through the middle part of it. The red thread is also a sign of balance. It’s like the red thread in the labyrinth of Ariadne, who has a red thread which keeps the hero in balance and makes sure that he always will find his way out of which kind of misery he is in. Even though he has to fight monsters, he will always be in balance enough to get out. And then that circle, that wholeness and its devoted in the Celtic, uh, culture to the goddess Bridget. And Bridget is a goddess of the hearth, maybe also of the heart, but especially of the the fireplace, which is also a place of the center, the center of life, the center of the home. The focus. Well, focus. When you focus, you get to the center. So for me, it’s not purely coincidental that Thor grips the rowan tree. He also wants that protection of being centered against such enormous female might. That’s my theory in any case. But the the lore around it is very interesting to protect yourself with crosses made of Rowan.
01:07:23
Jens: The German name of the Rowan tree, or one of the German names means as much as the little ash tree. I think it’s also sometimes called the mountain ash in English, so it’s like the smaller cousin of the ash trees with its very similar leaves. But I love it for its additional benefit of the nice flowers and spring and the red berries which the birds love so much. So it’s like the small, cheerful version of an ash tree.
01:07:48
Abe: I really like it as well. In spring. And in summer it’s it’s, um, it stands out then, uh, next to the more, um, the other higher trees you can spot them. Ah, there’s a round tree with a nice white, uh, blossoms.
01:08:05
Sif: Like the the potential connection there of Snorri would have called all of the giantess troll women trollkona. Um, so and obviously the idea of trolls and troll magic and ties in with witchcraft and all of that so that there’s this connections there, connective threads between the idea of the Rowan tree as a protection against potential magic or malicious intent. And those aspects… just learning so much today.
01:08:38
Abe: Well be yeah. Lots of trees are also associated with witchcraft and mostly then, um, good. Um, witchcraft in the sense of protecting against witchcraft, but also helping witches in a way, as helping wise women, not the evil witches, which we are accustomed with because of the time of the persecutions, but more of the wise women, the cunning women of the villages, and how they could use plants and trees as well in their folk ritual, folk healing and magic, which was sometimes simple. Just put some willow bark in a bath to protect your newly born. Something very simple which could maybe even have a beneficial health, uh, as well, because of the, uh, aspirin, uh um uh, which is in the bark of the willow tree. So sometimes it even has a, um, um, an effect which we still can find in the plant.
01:09:51
Sif: Incredible.
01:09:52
Abe: Yeah, I. It’s not the, uh. It’s not from the Nordic, um, parts. But I always like to tell when I do a tree walk and go around the different trees. And there are also some kids, uh, which are listening, and I tell them about the, the the, uh, „Bezem“ (Dutch for broomstick), um, the which the which is used to travel with and. Well, sometimes they are made of broom, but the real witches Bezem, which you can really fly with that should be made from ash, willow and birch. Why? Well, the staff is of ash. That’s the male part. The birch. That’s the young fertile goddess tree is the twigs. So that’s the other part. The male and the female are bound together. Put as, uh, like like they’re in a union with the willow. And the willow is, of course, very binding. And they’re very flexible. So you can bind with it and binding. Well, it’s like a kind of hand fasting is the thing which the witches, the, the wise women of the villages would have done. So there we have a connection between male and female, but with the cunning, the wisdom of the, the, the witches. So then, with those two in union and with a conscious, uh, way of using your male and your female energies and thinking of yourself as that Bezem, as that cosmic tree which goes from high to low, from plus to minus, male from female, and again back and forth and back and forth. Then your consciousness will travel, your consciousness will evolve or, uh, become different. So that’s the real travel, of course, of traveling with the besom stick and the cosmic tree. So it’s a nice, uh, story to tell which everybody can relate to. Well, we are nice witches flying on their broomsticks, but it has a way, way more deeper meaning than most people. Uh, see.
01:12:15
Jens: And I think it’s a wonderful story to close this podcast episode with. Thank you for that. So we will all go out and have a look at the different trees and think about what we’ve learned of them, how we can connect to the different trees the next days, weeks, month. Go out, search the trees, connect to them, and think about what Abe told you. Any last words from either of you?
01:12:40
Abe: Well, if you happen to be Dutch, I can recommend my books or my website Abe de Verteller. My books are called De symboliek van Bomen and De Wijsheid van Bomen. Uh, if you’re not Dutch, well, then you will always have this podcast.
01:12:58
Sif: Wow, it’s been incredible. Thank you. I needed this today to get my brain juices flowing.
01:13:06
Jens: Okay. Well, thank everyone for listening to this episode of the Wyrd Thing podcast. Uh, you find us on theWyrdThing.com, currently at Facebook and Instagram, I think. And thank you all. Bye bye.
01:13:22
Sif: Bye bye!